The goal of our Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) Europe Section Blog is to share stories and relevant information about activities going on within our section and more broadly in the conservation community. Stories and articles shared on our blog should not be taken as an official position or statement of SCB or SCB Europe Section. Thank you for reading!

Monday, 3 January 2011

New members on the Board - Welcome!

Margherita Gioria is the principal investigator of a project aimed at evaluating the impact of agriculture on Ireland's freshwater biodiversity. Over the years, she has worked extensively on evaluating changes in biodiversity associated with anthropogenic activities, including the introduction of invasive alien species, climate change, and the intensification of agricultural practices. Her main research interests are the measurement of patterns of biodiversity at multiple spatial scales, the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, the effects of global changes on biodiversity, the ecology and biology of invasive species, and the impact of plant invasions on ecosystems, including the susceptibility of invaded communities to secondary invasions. Her research activities have a strong laboratory, field, and theoretical component. Recently, her research has focused on the development of an analytical framework aimed at identifying surrogate taxa for biodiversity based on cross-taxa relationships and on the response of multiple taxonomic groups to the same set of environmental variables. Margherita has been provided guest lectures on specific topics including invasion ecology, biological monitoring, research methods, and multivariate analysis. She has supervised a number of undergraduate and masters students working on evaluating the conservation value of ecosystems or habitats such as golf courses, esker pond systems, springs and headstreams.

Pierre Ibisch is professor for Nature Conservation with the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development. He is currently holding a research professorship for "Biodiversity conservation and natural resource management under global change"; among others, they implement research projects on the adaptation of conservation to climate/global change. He has a strong background in conservation and development in South America where he has lived and worked for about 9 years. He served in the policy committee and has been member of the Board once (2005-2007), a great experience in exciting times when the SCB-ES started to mature and made great progress. For a while, he chaired the Policy Committee and was actively involved in the preparation and realization of the first two European Conferences for Conservation Biology (ECCB). He promoted the integration of sustainability issues into the section's work. They created a first European 'footprint offset' conservation project, and strived for a green Prague meeting. He is linked to the global SCB Environmental Footprint Committee.

Gábor Lövei is an ecologist and entomologist. He was born and educated in Hungary, but has been working in the field of ecology, ornithology, and entomology in several European countries, China, New Zealand, and Africa. Currently is a Senior Scientist at Aarhus University, Denmark, and Adjunct Professor at the Plant Protection Institute, Beijing, China. His scientific activity includes research in conservation biology with special focus on invasion ecology, biodiversity on cultivated land, environmental biosafety of transgenic plants, biological control of arthropod pests, bird migration, tropical ecology and scientific communication. Author of >120 peer-reviewed papers, editor of 8 books. Founding Director of the Training Center in Communication, Nairobi, Kenya, with long teaching experience in the area of scientific writing and communication. Within the Society, Gábor (with Rob Marrs) held two successful training courses in scientific writing at the two European Conservation Biology conferences, and teaches in the Greek Summer School.

Mikko Mönkönnen is professor in applied ecology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and currently the head of the Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences. He did his PhD in ecology studying the biogeography and community ecology of forest birds in Europe and North America after a year at the Canadian Wildlife Service. Since that his research interests have widened to cover landscape ecology and ecological economics of forest dwelling species including mammals, insects, fungi and plants. His current research interests focus on finding cost-efficient tools at the landscape level to reconcile economically sustainable use of forests and maintenance of forest biodiversity. This is becoming even more challenging with the global climate change and intensification of human land-use practices. He has a long experience to collaborate and communicate with regional and national level authorities on practical environmental issues. He has noticed that efficient communication and mutual involvement among scientist, conservation practitioners and policy makers is a prerequisite for efficient conservation practice but even more important is the ability to think big yet willingness to act step-by-step.

Andrew Ramsey is a principal lecturer in the Centre for Wildlife Conservation at the University of Cumbria, UK. He has been involved with the SCB since 2004, and is an active member of the European and Global education committees. This work has included teaching and organising courses at SCB global meetings and European congresses, and being heavily involved in the Greek Summer Schools. Most of his research involves interdisciplinary work developing strategies to maximise biodiversity benefits within economically active woodland ecosystems in the UK, Greece, Austria, Finland and Malaysia. He is also involved in research on red squirrel habitat networks, chemical communication strategies in brown bear, and conservation of freshwater mussels. Andrew has been involved in a range of initiatives, including leading the development of thriving undergraduate courses, postgraduate courses, linking conservation biology to the media, as well as teaching on a wide range of programmes.

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His scientific activity includes research in conservation biology with special focus on invasion ecology, biodiversity on cultivated land, environmental biosafety of transgenic plants, biological control of arthropod pests, bird migration, tropical ecology and scientific communication.